CIVIL DEFENCE ROLE FOR ARMY IN ANY FUTURE WAR

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27406, 20 July 1954, Page 11

CIVIL DEFENCE ROLE FOR ARMY IN ANY FUTURE WAR

(Rec. 11 p.m.) RQNbON, July 19. In the event of war it wgs possible that much of the British Territorial Army would be engaged in civil defence duties for the first few months, says the military corresponfLlept of (he “Manchester Guardian” in discussing a talk which Field-Marshal laard Montgomery gave at S.H.A.F.E. headquarters in Paris.

Lord Montgomery suggested that if atomic bombs wpre dropped on Britain at the start of a war, the territorial army would have to help the civil defence organisation. He said he did not believe a purely voluntary defence organisation would deal with the immense destruction an atomic bomb could cause. In peace-time it was not desirable to have an enormous number of people in civil defence, he said. What was wanted was a sound framework and a well-disciplined organisation with good leadership. In war the reserve army

would have tq accept civil defence demands and help clear up wreckage. The correspondent adds: “It seems almost certain bombs, would be used early in any future war as Western defence plans pre based on atomic strategy. The general opinion at S.H.A P E. is that the West could win a future war only bv usipg atomic weapons to counter the immense numerical superiority of Russia. “The West’s main defence effort is therefore on the air side—on the building up of strategic bombing force air-

fields (there are now 120 of these and by the year’s end it is hoped there will be 150> and an oil pipeline for refuelling jet aircraft. “Senior officers at SJ.H.A.P.E. are alive to the possibility that if thp Russians started a war, they might be subtle enough not to use the atomic bomb themselves and thus place the onus of being first to use it on the Western democracies. If public o»inion prevented this, the West would be deprived of the best use of its strongest weapon—the United States Strategic Air Force, to which Russia probably has no counter at the moment."